Crests And Cranes Sandhill Cranes Sweep The Air Near Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes

The air is filled with the calligraphy of birds, linear waves of cranes like Japanese signs against the sky. They seem to flush out over the snowy San Juan mountains, emerging in pulses toward the barley fields near the Moravian Brewery and the Coors beer sign, where they sink down and get drunk on grain.

Like a million magnets, these feeding grounds in the San Luis Valley draw the cranes in their March migration from breeding places at Gray’s Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho. As the cranes soar closer, with their over-6-feet wing spans, 4-feet-long bodies, and necks and legs stretching straight out, they resemble B-52 bombers when viewed through binoculars.

Their low and rolling three-syllable cry, “garooo-a, garooo-a,” penetrating and guttural, can be heard for miles around, and it crescendos exponentially as they come nearer.

But as they emerge in the distance against the bluish San Juan peaks and ridges, the flocks drift like shifting, blowing rain, seeming to trace migratory lines in the spaces inside your mind, as well as in the air outside.

A perfect companion experience to the cranes also awaits visitors at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument, about an hour’s drive away.

Constantly changing ripple effects of moving sand, lengthening and darkening shadows on the shapes of the dunes, and the always shifting sculptures of the dunes themselves create - like the cranes - a symphony of infinite movement and harmony.

As the wind forms these varying patterns, your may feel drawn again into that sense of flux that is the essence of life with its cycles of change and renewal. There’s also a sense of endless time that permeates

This 700-foot-high, pure-sand landscape was built up over a period of 5,000 to 15,000 years. Depending on the time of day, the dunes turn different shades of rust, brown, pink, cream, gray and gold. The play of light and shadow on the sand is always evolving, forming scenes of great drama where one side of a sculptured dune may appear golden and rippled, and the other side may also be black. Early morning and late afternoon are best for these special effects.

Special effects could almost describe the interplay of the cranes, back in the valley. At times, they cluster together as though they were curling around their own centers of gravity, or they spin out in long, dark lines like thin threads of black ink, now blurring, now clarifying. Often, they look as though they were writing in oriental letters on a scroll of air, with the slow and varied, up-and-down flapping of their great wings appearing like black ink-brush strokes against the sky. It’s an experience you remember forever - esthetic, monumental, primeval.

The thousands of acres of San Luis Valley barley draw them to Colorado’s Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, part of a chain of 400 refuges around the country that offer food, water, and cover to different species of birds in order to help preserve the enormous varieties of wildlife that we still have left.

The wetlands here also draw the cranes, as well as numerous types of waterfowl, from snowy egrets, black-crowded night herons, avocets, and 20,000 to 30,000 ducks during the height of their season. These wetlands were formed artificially into dikes, irrigation ditches and ponds to hold water from the Rio Grande River and from underground aquifers filled by melting snows from the 14,000-foot peaks of the San Juan and Sangre de Christo mountains that surround the San Luis Valley.

For visitors who are lucky, there’s also a chance of seeing the rare white whooping cranes - 5 feet high, with 7-feet wing spans - among the comparatively grayer sandhill cranes, thanks to a a fosterparent breeding program that started in 1975. Scientists were allowed to take one of every two eggs from the Canadian nests of the nearly extinct whooping cranes and place them in the nests of sandhill cranes at Gray’s Lake Refuge in Idaho.

By 1941, only 16 whooping cranes, a species unique to North America, were left in the wild. Now, there are 20 to 25 birds in the foster whooping crane populations, and about 200 whooping cranes in the wild populations.

The whoopers learn the flying patterns of their foster parents, so there are always a few who come with the flock to rest and feed at Monte Vista, one of the main stopping place along the Central Flyway of migrating birds in the United States.

The cranes’ migration continues to the Bosque del Apache national Wildlife Refuge on the Rio Grande in New Mexico - a total journey of 850 miles.

Another resting place for cranes exists near Grand Island and Kearney, Nebraska, along the North Platte River, but while their numbers are even greater than at Monte Vista - which can have 10,000 to 30,000 birds in the valley - there are no snow-topped Rocky Mountains as a scenic backdrop.

The sandhill cranes can be seen swirling against a curtain of mountains from almost any vantage point, but they’re especially visible and up close as a trail gets nearer to the barley fields, where you’ll notice their very light gray feathers and red foreheads just above their long beaks. There’s a good chance you’ll see some pairs of them jumping up and down and spreading their wings as they prance in ritual mating dances. Or you may view their shadowy forms behind lacelike meadows of grain that give a golden tapestry texture to the foreground.

The migration of these huge birds is so dynamic, graceful and haunting - attuned to the great perennial movements - it can stay in one’s consciousness forever. Seeing the birds again and again becomes a kind of necessity, like welcoming in the cycle of spring.

MEMO: This is a sidebar which appeared with story: IF YOU GO To celebrate the arrival of the cranes, the town of Monte Vista near Alamosa, Colo., (about 4 1/2 hours southwest of Denver) holds its annual Crane Festival from March 23 through Sunday, March 26. The birds also migrate through the area in October, but without any formal celebration. From Denver, drive southwest, passing beautiful mountain scenery, on highways 285 and 160. You can explore the refuge yourself - early mornings (from sunrise to 7 a.m.) or late afternoons are best, or you can take bus tours to view the wildlife. Tours leave Monte Vista at 7 and 9:30 a.m. Thursday through Saturday; Sunday at 7:30. Reservations should be made in advance. The Crane Festival offers wildlife seminars by experts, a crane photography workshop, a barbecue, pancake breakfast, and special trips to the Great Sand Dunes, 50 miles away, and to the mining museum in the impressive mountain town of Creede. Make sure you bring the strongest binoculars you can obtain (preferably 8x40 and up), as well as cameras with long telephoto lenses (at least 250 mm, but 500 mm or more are even better). Binoculars, especially, make an immense difference in the overall impact of relating to these huge birds. Call (719) 852-4382 in Monte Vista for reservations and information, or write Monte Vista Crane Festival, P.O. Box 585, Monte Vista, CO 81144. Housing is available in Monte Vista and nearby Alamosa. For further information on the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, contact Refuge Manager, Alamosa-Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, P.O. Box 1148, Alamosa, CO 81101 (phone 719/589-4021). For Crane Festival reservations call (719) 852-3552. A perfect companion experience to the cranes awaits visitors at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument, just 54 miles northeast of Monte Vista off of 285. The 55 square miles of dunes are the highest in the United States. Add to that the stupendous backdrop of the bluish and craggy snow-topped Sangre de Christo (“Blood of Christ”) Mountains, and you’ll find a special combination of inspiring scenery, rich and subtle plays of light and color, and evanescent movement. For further information on Great Sand Dunes National Monument, write the Monument of Mosca, CO 81146, or call (719) 378-2312.